


Spectre

by prince_consort_sonic (my_odestiny)



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Ghosts, Halloween, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:36:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8451952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_odestiny/pseuds/prince_consort_sonic
Summary: Now that the space colony ARK has been brought down to earth, there are rumors that it's haunted by a girl's ghost. Shadow intends to find out for sure.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is inexcusably late for Halloween and inexplicably inspired by the Sonic Facebook page.

RESTRICTED AREA  
KEEP OUT 

 The sign did little to deter a handful of curious boys from clambering up the chain link fence and slipping through a break in the barbed wire. The jagged half-moon cast just enough light for them to find the ground on the other side. Before they moved any further, they scanned the horizon once more for any sign of military personnel. Clear. With hushed whispers of excitement, the boys turned on their flashlights and started for the looming structure just ahead.

     It was the size of a skyscraper, they decided—if a skyscraper had been balled up into a planetary sphere. At one point, it must have seemed impenetrable. Now, the massive edifice lay broken open like an egg, leaking debris and decay. Warped steel jutted like monsters’ teeth from every torn seem, and the boys were careful not to cut themselves as they picked their way inside.

     “They were doing freaky experiments here,” one of the boys narrated as the beams of their flashlights wandered ahead of them, illuminating the layers of maze-like floors that surrounded them. “When the feds came to stop them, a girl died in the fight.”

     “What was a girl doing on a space colony?” another boy asked skeptically.

     “She was one of their experiments,” the first told him. “She had some disease they were trying to cure. When the raid started, she tried to run away, and a soldier shot her in the back.”

     “Then what?” The third boy’s voice was nervous as he glanced back at the field for any approaching patrols.

     “The feds cleared the place out. No one went there for fifty years until Dr. Eggman did that.” The boy pointed upward past the torn steel at the night sky above them, where what remained of the moon hung, precarious, as if the remainder might yet fall. The boys had been just old enough to remember the day half the moon’s face had been shattered, yet still too young to understand the gravity of what had happened. It was a hazy memory of frantic parents and nonstop news coverage, and it was nearly impossible for any of them to remember the moon, or the world, as it was before.

     “So the President ordered it had to be taken down,” the storyteller continued. “They made it fall into the ocean, and then they dragged it here. They disabled all the weapons, and they were supposed to tear the whole thing apart. But then stuff started happening.”

     “Stuff like what?” a fourth boy, who had until then seemed uninterested in the story, finally piped up.

     “My Uncle Dan was on the demolition crew,” the first boy explained as he waved his flashlight over an abandoned bulldozer. “He said they started hearing noises coming from inside the building, like someone was walking around even though the whole crew was outside. The equipment kept breaking down. When it did, they could hear someone crying and calling for help, but they could never find them.”

      “So what?” one of the boys feigned disbelief.

     “So…” The first boy turned to fast the other three, angling his flashlight toward his face to cast himself in a sinister glow. “This place is haunted. By the girl who got killed here.”  

     “How do you know?” one of them retorted.

     “Because my uncle’s buddy saw her.”

     The boys tensed, unaware that they had stopped in their tracks.

     The storyteller drew closer to them, “He came in really early one morning, when it was still dark outside. He was clearing away these big pieces of glass that used to be the windows. And when he picked one up, he saw her staring at him. He quit that day, and then my uncle and a bunch of other guys quit too. So now it’s just the ghost…and us.”

     “No way,” the skeptic scoffed. “There’s no gho-”

     Before he could finish, one of the boys shushed him. A creaking sound emerged from the belly of the colony, as if something was roaming toward them. The boys held their breath as they listened closer, praying the noise would disappear.

     Instead, a shriek ripped through air, splitting their ears with a deafening pitch. The boys could hardly hear their own screams as they staggered out of the ruins and bolted toward the fence, begging for mercy. They skeptic was the first up the fence, the others at his heels. They kept running, none of them daring to look back.

     Shadow continued to drag the lead pipe along the steel interior of the ARK until the boys were well out of sight. The shrieking sound faded as his hand slowed, and finally he dropped the pipe to the ground with a clatter. Silence settled back over the abandoned colony. He retreated back into the colony—its hallways familiar even in decay—and retrieved a shard of glass from the remains of the observation deck. It became the new centerpiece of his circle. Five candles still burned bright, and the digital recorder still collected the seconds. Shadow knelt in front of the glass until his reflection flickered before him, and took a breath of the chilly night air.

     “Maria?” he called uncertainly. “I’m still here. If you can hear me, show me you’re here too…”

     Shadow stared at himself in the glass until the rising sun obscured robbed the glass of any reflection. The candles had long since burned out and re-hardened into uneven saucers of wax. The recorder ran on unbroken. Shadow hugged his knees and listened to the sound of a hovercraft descending just outside. Moments later, he heard a familiar set of wings alight behind him.

     “You know I don’t even check your place anymore,” Rouge informed him as she brushed crumbs off the front of her uniform. “I come straight here.”

     When Shadow didn’t respond, she dangled a fast food baggie in front of his face. He finally swiped it away when she began thumping his forehead with it.

     “Come on.” Rouge waved for him to follow as she started back in the direction of her plane. “Time to go home.”

     Begrudgingly, Shadow drew himself to his feet and followed her. He climbed into the passenger’s seat of the plane and let the baggie sit unopened in his lap. They rode in silence toward the mountains, where an unassuming structure stood tucked into a narrow valley, protected from the view of larger, less observant aircraft. As soon as they landed, Shadow leapt out of his seat, leaving the baggie behind as he stalked inside. He immediately plugged the recorder into the speakers at his bedside and skipped back to the beginning of the night’s track Rouge leaned against the open doorway of the shelter, baggie in hand.

     “I know you don’t have to eat or sleep or any of that fun stuff, but it’d probably do you some good.” She watched him hit play before she added, “A hobby wouldn’t hurt either. Something that doesn’t involve harassing the dead.”

     Shadow stared down at the recorder and listened to himself calling Maria’s name. “What if they’re right, Rouge?” he finally asked. “What if her spirit is trapped there, and it’s my fault?”

     Rouge’s face sobered. “You know it’s not.”

     He didn’t respond. She took a breath to say more, but let it go in a sigh.

     “Maybe I’ll send Sonic over for a playdate,” she suggested, resuming her air of levity. “He says you owe him a race.”

     “Please don’t,” Shadow grumbled.

     “Then eat your breakfast.” Rouge plopped the fast food on the table by the door. “I’ll see you around.” She shut the shelter door, and Shadow turned up the volume of the recording to hear over the sound of her taking off. He lay on his bed and listened to the white noise, only ever interrupted by his own invocations, at least until the intrusion of the schoolboys. He listened to himself scare the boys off with the scraping metal, return with the glass. He heard his own voice again, so foreign to his own ears.

_“Maria? I’m still here. If you can hear me, show me you’re here too…”_

     Shadow closed his eyes and prepared for more hours of white noise. However, it wasn’t long before the steady stream of nothing gave way to crackling static. He squinted at the recorder and waited for the static to clear. It only deepened, and he sat up, his brow drawn.

     The static crackled and skipped, fluctuating with pitches that sounded like distant, broken voices. Shadow rolled his eyes—the recorder had picked up interference from the radio tower nearby. It had happened before. He reached to stop the recording, but his hand froze when the static rolled into one faint, unmistakable sound:

_“…Shadow?”_

 

 


End file.
